In the past, shaped charge warheads have been used to penetrate and defeat various types of armored vehicles. As a result, many of these armored vehicles have now incorporated highly sloped frontal armor surfaces which increase the thickness of armor that must be penetrated for frontal attack by shaped charges. Because of this and since present day shaped charged warheads generally attack the armored vehicle head-on, there is a need for a device that can attack the armor of the vehicle in such a manner as to attack the armor in a more advantageous way.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a missile with a canting shaped charge warhead for attacking the armor of a vehicle at a thinner cross section.
Another object of this invention is to provide a shaped charge that is canted at the target to an angle which is near normal to the armor surface when the shaped charge is set off.
Still another object of this invention is to utilize a shaped charge that is canted in such a manner that the shaped charge can have a diameter that is that of the missile to provide for maximum warhead diameter relative to missile diameter.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide a missile with a canted shaped charge warhead so as to not require complex trajectory shaping for the missile.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will be obvious to those skilled in this art.